During the first lockdown I watched a TED interview with Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) in which she talked about writing a letter from Love to herself everyday. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp if you believe that each and everyone of us has a Higher Power looking out for us, whether it be Nature, Buddha, A Philosophy, A Family Member, A Guardian Angel, A Support Group or the God Of Your Faith. Love is just another Higher Power to turn to and in fact is the embodiment of all a Higher Power should be.
Of course, children should expect to receive unconditional love from their parents and unconditional respect from their mentors, however, this should not preclude the idea that a child can expect to receive unconditional love from herself. A child writing a letter from Love to herself teaches her that in those times when she is feeling a lack of self-confidence and self-worth she can use the letter from Love to steer her Eeyore self-musings in a more positive direction, an exercise in resilience that she can take through her developmental life and into adulthood.
Elizabeth says:
'It’s not hard to write to yourself from unconditional love, actually. It’s the simplest thing. All you have to do is ask yourself, what are the words that I wish somebody else would say to me right now? If the most loving and supportive and strong person in the world was here to take care of me, what would I want to hear that person say? And then you write down those imaginary words down from love, directly to you, directly to your fear, and when you start doing this, when you start writing to yourself from love, you’ll realize that you always know what you need to hear because you’ve been longing to hear those words your whole life. You’ve just been wanting somebody else to say them.'
#yogabananaswisdom #teachingchildrenresilience #teachingchildrenhowtolove #teachingchildrenresilienceactivities #selfcareforkids
